


Memories Lost

by iLurked



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Written pre 1x16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iLurked/pseuds/iLurked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simmons forgot three years of her life. Can the team help her remember?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forget Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> One Hundred-Word Drabbles in Fifteen Parts.

I 

He promised to catch her if she fell; but he didn’t this time.

With all the extraordinary risks and danger they were exposed on a daily basis, who would have thought that she would be felled by a garden-variety convenience store robber.

She was inside the store when a gunfight erupted between the inexperienced criminals and the responding police officers that left two dead and her injured.

He could still see her on the floor, lying in a pool of her own blood.

He was able to breathe again only after Coulson came and declared, “The operation was a success.”

II 

_“Is what she said true?” Jemma asked. “You’re in love with someone onboard?” her eyes involuntarily strayed to the hacker busy a few yards away._

_“Not Skye.” Ward’s jaw clenched. Lorelie had wrecked havoc on Midgard once again. Thankfully, Ward now knew better than to allow her to talk to him, much less touch him._

_“May?”_

_“We had a thing before,” he admitted. “But, no.”_

_“If it’s not Skye, and it’s not May, then—”_

_Ward nodded, holding his breath._

_“Fitz?”_

_Just as Ward as about to explode in frustration, Jemma laughed and threw her arms around him._

III 

She did not come out of the medically-induced coma slowly.

Instead, she came into consciousness in the same way she lived her life: full-on, recklessly, with great abandon.

She was alarmed that she cannot move; scared of all the tubes that were running through her body. Her eyes were wild, distressed, terrified.

She rejected all attempts to calm her. She only relaxed after Fitz went to her bedside and slipped his hand into hers.

Unnoticed, the hands of the man who blamed himself for what had happened, the same man who held constant vigil while she was asleep, tightened painfully.

IV 

_Not even in his wildest imaginings did he thought he would end up like this._

_When he told Jemma earlier that he wanted cookies, he imagined the two of them exploring the city hand in hand for a place to drink coffee in (or tea, in Jemma’s case)._

_Unfortunately, she was busy doing a favour for Stark Industries._

_She had only to smile at him and to tell him that she would love a freshly-baked biscuit._

_That was how he found himself in the kitchen, barefoot, wearing the pinkest and frilliest apron in existence, baking, with a delighted Fitz supervising._

V 

Skye’s eyes were red from heartbreak. She looked terrible, but Ward knew he looked worse.

"She doesn’t remember us.” she cried.

Jemma’s head trauma caused her to forget three years of her life.

He did not want to make it about him. She was the one who was injured (but it was him who was hurting).

He was hurt every time she reached for Fitz, every time she looked at him like he was a stranger, every time she smiled at him, confused.

Steeling himself, he entered her room. She may not remember him, but he still needed her.

VI 

_It had been a long day: a thirty-two hour day wasted on shadowing a SHIELD person of interest._

_Jemma met him at the entrance of the Bus. Immediately, he felt lighter, happier, cleaner._

_Unfortunately, she was with his rookie. The two women looked at him then at each other before bursting into giggles._

_“That’s it,” he growled to Skye. “A hundred sit-ups.”_

_“Sure, whatever,” Skye shrugged negligently._

_“Sorry, Grant,” Jemma giggled as she wrapped herself around him for a good morning kiss. “The growl just doesn’t have the same effect with all that scruff on your face.”_

VII 

“Grant?”

Ward stopped pounding the bag when Jemma walked in.

“They told me I could find you here.” she said.

It killed him how hesitantly she walked towards him. She bit her lip and played with the ring on her finger.

“There’s something about you,” she clutched her stomach as if it was hurting. “It’s frustrating. It’s like a word that’s on the tip of my tongue but keeps eluding me.”

“Tell me how to help.” he told her desperately as he reached for her hand. “Anything you need.”

“Maybe you could help me remember?”


	2. Remember Me

VIII

“That’s the lab you share with Fitz.”

Coulson was giving Jemma the tour of the Bus in an attempt to convince her to stay on instead of returning to the Hub.

“So, you still in?” he tried not to look too eager. He didn’t want to lose Jemma in the team. Even with amnesia, she was still the best.

“I have to think about it, sir.”

“Jemma,” Ward walked up to them, shirtless and fresh from his workout. “Welcome back.”

“Oh, thanks.” she pinked. “Can’t wait to start tomorrow.”

Coulson smiled. His timing was flawless.

IX

Jemma winced when she unwound the fabric that hid her bald head from the world. She knew that shaving off her hair was a necessary evil before her operation. Still, she was vain enough to feel the pain of losing her locks.

From the mirror, she saw the bathroom door open and Ward walk in.

“Sorry.” he was about to leave when he noticed her trying to hide her head. “You’re still beautiful.” he declared, trying to be comforting. “And it’ll grow back.”

He left immediately after his pronouncement so he did not see her brilliant smile in reply.

X

“Ward’s my S.O.”

“Significant other?”

Skye happily noted the uneasy expression on Jemma’s face that immediately disappeared with the reply, “Ew. No. Supervising officer.”

“Oh.”

“But I believe that he may be your significant other.” Skye said slyly.

“Oh, no,” Jemma denied vehemently. “Fraternization’s against protocols.”

“That’s why you guys are keeping it a secret.”

Jemma had broken the rules for Ward in the past, and with the way her eyes followed him everywhere, Skye had no doubt that Jemma would do so again in the future.  
It was just a matter of time.

XI

“You always do this!” Jemma stomped her foot. “Stop hovering!”

Ward was about to shout back his retort when he paused. Blinked. “Always?”

“What?”

“You said always.” his face was so suffused with hope that Jemma felt her heart breaking. “You remembered something?”

She frowned thoughtfully. She realised that her reaction, her irritation was not commensurate to Ward’s offence. After all, he merely insisted to carry her heavy pack for her.

“I don’t know.” she replied slowly. “Maybe.”

“Don’t force yourself.” he reached for her arm and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll figure it out.”

XII

May’s fluid tai chi movements were a direct contrast to the fidgety Simmons who would walk around the living room, sit down, then spring back up again.

“Sorry for interrupting your Zen,” Jemma said apologetically. “I just can’t seem to relax.”

May hid a smile.

Simmons pacing around the living room like a madman was comforting. Before the accident, that was what she did whenever Ward was out on a dangerous mission.

A beeping tablet interrupted May’s concentration.

“Cargo door’s open.” she told Simmons. “There’s someone there who wants to see you as bad as you want to see him.”

XIII

“Scrabble?”

“No. You cheat.”

“I do not.”

“Favor,” Ward said with great dignity. “Is not spelled with a ‘u’.”

Jemma opened her mouth, but instead of retorting, she suddenly jerked and would have fallen down had not Ward caught her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, worried.

“I think,” she said faintly. “I remember something.”

“What?”

Dark nights. Tangled limbs. Passionate kisses. Grant Ward. Deliciously naked.

“Jemma?”

“Nothing.” she couldn’t look him in the eyes. “It’s nothing. I gotta go.”

She knew Ward watched as she hurried away.

“Interesting,” he said, smug.

XIV

Fitz saw a half-naked Ward seated in the lab. When Fitz walked in, Jemma popped up beside Ward.

“What were you doing under there?” Fitz demanded. “Wait, I don’t want to know. I’d give you fifteen minutes to finish what you were doing.”

“Something fell and I—”

“I said I don’t want to know.”

Perhaps Fitz was the only person in the Bus who was relatively unworried about Jemma’s memory loss.

It wasn’t because he was uncaring of his friend’s fate.

It was because he had faith in Simmons and Ward.

Some things were simply inevitable.

XV

It was not like the movies. Her memory did not return in one fell swoop. Instead, she had occasional flashbacks and sneak peeks, like movie previews without context.

“Another memory?” beside her on the bed, Grant gathered her in his arms, spooning her. “Tell me.”

So she did. He had fallen asleep in the middle, but it was okay.

She learned that the past didn’t matter as much as the future.

She had accepted that she might not remember exactly how she and Grant fell in love (the first time), but somehow she fell in love with him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For burningletter- and Thea/jemward, both of whom wanted the happy-ever-after ending and the Jemma remembers thing. Jemma did remember, right? Well, maybe a little. :D

**Author's Note:**

> Parts Four and Six were based on the prompts given by Thea/jemward: Grant bakes Jemma cookies; and Grant grows a beard Jemma reacts, respectively.


End file.
